


Nomatophobia

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Fear, M/M, Names, Season/Series 05, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-03
Updated: 2005-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fear of names.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nomatophobia

**Author's Note:**

> For sweptawaybayou's [Phobia Ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/sweptawaybayou/208865.html)

Wesley looks through him.

_Wesley_ looks through him.

Wesley barely looks up from his research when Angel lounges in his door frame, says a quick goodnight and doesn't bother to be grateful that Angel is speaking to him again.

If he were going to undo the memory spell -- and he won't, no danger of that, but if he were -- it would be on account of Wesley.

Goddamn, but if _everything_ isn't on account of Wesley. His friends, his coworkers, his partners in the showdown they're tottering towards, they march before before him like a ragtag parade and Wes is always in the lead, not because he loves him most -- oh God, _Cordy_ ; he feels her like the short stab in the side that he'll never let himself feel for missing Connor because Connor's in a better place -- but because he needs Wesley the most.

Dammit, he _does_.

"Night, Wes."

"You still here? I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"I don't need sleep."

Wesley laughs and still doesn't look at him. "If Cordelia were here..." and the laughter is gone. At least there's that. At least Wes isn't laughing anymore.

"Well, she's not. You gonna take her place?"

Wesley does look up, now. Raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, uh, tell me to go to bed."

"Ah." He ducks his head down again, frowning at a passage in his book. "By all means, go to bed. I don't need your help here." Wesley's way of telling him to get lost. But he still lingers by the door. He wants to make Wesley say it, tell him. _Look at him_.

Wesley purses his lips and stares for a long time at a page of his book. Then he closes it, taps it gently, whispers something Angel can't hear, and opens it again. He's seen him do this hundreds of times, but it still gives him a little twist of nostalgia for the days when Wes'd come into his office, looking pained, and ask, "What have you done with my books?"

"What's that?" Angel steps into Wesley's office.

"A book," Wesley says slowly, like he's explaining something to a child. "Why are you still here?"

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"Because at the moment, I'm quite busy."

Wesley has changed. When he first came to Los Angeles, he wouldn't have dared. Last year, he wouldn't have tried. Angel is glad he's started shaving again but wishes --

" _Angel_." He jerks back to attention, finds himself slouching quite close to Wesley's desk. "What's bothering you?" The voice is gentler now.

He shrugs and almost answers, but the words come out a bit slurred. "I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you." Once he would have killed Wesley. He shakes off the invisible hands that kept him from the hospital bed.

"Try me." Wesley closes the book and pushes it aside, and Angel's won this round.

"I'll give you a name," he says. "Connor."

Wesley blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"Exactly." He doesn't know why he thought it would help. The name that turns his stomach makes Wesley blink confusedly. This is why.

"Jasmine," he says.

"The flower?" Wesley glances at his book as if it could contain answers, so Angel hurries on.

"Holtz."

Wesley frowns more deeply. "We took care of that -- I'm not sure -- but we took care of that years ago. Why are you still...? Angel? Is something wrong?"

Angel has taken a seat somewhat abruptly. Every time someone doesn't recognize the names is a gut-punch; why does he never remember that until it's too late?

"Nope -- just some bad Chinese food. Tell Lorne not to order from them again."

++

Silence.

++

Wesley pushes his chair back and crouches next to Angel, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he struggles for words. For memories. There's something quite wrong here and Wesley doesn't know what it is, though he thinks once he knew the names that Angel fears.

"Angel," he tries again, but Angel's eyes have closed. "Angelus. Liam."

But there's only laughter, bitter, hollow. When Angel rises, he almost knocks Wesley over, and Wesley has to scramble to regain his footing. He pushes himself upright. "Goodnight, Wes."

"Goodnight, Angel."

He stares at the blank book on his desk. He remembers what he was reading but not why, and somehow, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The only name that's in his mind is Connor, and he doesn't even know whose name that is.

Just that Angel fears it.

Angel was never afraid of anything external, so Connor must be a hidden thing, something trapped inside him. He has considered many times slogging through company records to find the places where that and similar names are kept hidden, but Angel's near-tears tonight make the task more urgent.

There's still something comforting about doing work for Angel. He cannot recall the precise moment when he suddenly stopped being a school-boy for Angel, but the moment passed, years ago, and now he is something else. Not a valet -- perhaps a general. He cannot shake the notion that Angel is fighting a war none of them know about.

Connor. Jasmine. Holtz. The names hurt him, but he can't remember why. They have, like so many other things that once seemed to matter immensely, slipped into the residue at the bottom of his brain, which has gone slightly to seed, left underused after many years of choosing brawn.

This year, it seems, he's chosen books, or been chosen for them. Of more immediate import, though: this year, as every year, he's chosen Angel -- been chosen by him. And whether he's a general or a pawn in the army Angel's pretending not to lead, Wesley has sworn with oaths more binding than the Council's most feared vows to follow Angel. It eases his mind to have this certain knowledge when so many pieces of his life seem to fit together wrong.

He whispers a secret word to the book, and it falls open on an encoded page. Wesley smirks at it and has already prepared the first line of his translation before pen touches paper.

++

Elsewhere in the building, Angel lies awake, and holds close to himself the names he won't tell Wesley, because he trusts him too much to burden him with their past.


End file.
